Page 51 of Reformation
Mildred paused. “What?”
“Or at least vast swaths of it,” Garrett continued. “Everything that President Alexander has personally invested in, certainly. I’m going toruinit. I’m going to break it down into its component parts and get it reduced, reassessed, and reassigned until it’s unrecognizable. And I’m going to do this within the next forty-eight hours.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Exactly what I’m saying.” He leaned forward and made sure their gazes connected. “I’m going to take down President Alexander, and I’m going to do it in the ways that will hurt him most. I’m going to ruin his reputation as a leader, a politician, and a businessman. I’m going to destroy every positive facet of his public personality until it’s completely broken, and everyone can see him for the stinking, shriveled piece of offal that he is. I’m going to obliterate every trace of his influence and make him into the most-hated man in the Alliance, and once that’s done, I’m probably going to get him killed.” Garrett shrugged. “Imight even give him the opportunity for a trial first, but that all depends on what happens at Pandora.”
No Jonah and Cody, all bets are off. Fuck having a trial, he won’t even have a grave.
“Pandora? What … what does that backwater have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with it,” Garrett said gently. “As you’d know if you ever bothered to come out of your chrysalis and talk to your son.”
“You can’t do this.” She sounded more confident now. “You can’t do any of this. You don’t have the means or the influence. You’re not the senator, not the governor—nothing like your father. You can’t—”
“It’s a terribly bad idea to tell me what I can and can’t do,” Garrett advised her. “It makes me angry in ways I’ve got very little voluntary control over right now.” If she only knew how narrowly he was holding back his worst impulses … “This is a courtesy call, Millie, nothing more. I suggest you divest our family’s holdings from big Alliance institutions as fast as you can because they might not be around much longer.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You realize I could take this threat to the president himself?”
“Why would he listen to you? He knows who I am, and he doesn’t think I can do it either. He would laugh in your face, call you too credulous, maybe call you a threat yourself.” Garrett shrugged. “Do what you want, but I’m going to act soon. It’s up to you whether you want to be bankrupted or not. But Miles and me, and our families? We’ll be fine.” He had seen to that years before.
The red light in the corner of his vision started flashing. “I have to go.”
“Wait! We’re not done here, Garrett. I need more details—I need more information about this!”
“I don’t have time to give you anymore.” He cut the connection and opened the icon. It took less than a second to realize why it had started pinging him.
“Oh.” Garrett stared at the ship indicators numbly. “Oh, no, please. Oh no, nononono …”
“What is it?” Jonah asked.
“It’s …” He couldn’t say anything, though. He could only watch in helpless thrall as one of the worst things he could imagine happened right before his eyes.
“No.”
Chapter twenty-nine
Darrel
The air reverberated with the shrill klaxon of alarms, yellow and red lights almost blinding as they blinked in time with their auditory accompaniment. Darrel sat fixed in his chair, hands gripping the seat so hard he couldn’t even feel them anymore, heart racing.
“Forward shields down to fifteen percent, sir! Ventral shields down to five. One more strafe across the bottom, and we’re going to start venting!”
“TheCleaveris dead in space, sir! Full evac ongoing, but two star-shatterers are closing in on it.”
“Captain Obede says he needs another five minutes before he can safely break formation, sir.”
“Sir—”
“Sir—”
“All firepower and shields forward, full weapons spread, and engage wherever we get a lock. If our shields are low, theirs haveto be close to tatters.” General Caractacus’ voice cut through the babble like a scalpel through flesh. “Put as much of our bulk between theCleaverand her pursuers as possible. Acknowledge Obede but tell him to shave two minutes off that time because we’re not going to be able to maintain our position for longer than that.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “And signal our own evacuation. All nonessential personnel are to proceed to the escape pods immediately.”
“But, sir—”
He silenced the outcry almost immediately. “We’re not going to survive many more direct hits. We don’t have the maneuverability this close to the other ships to save ourselves, but if we don’t stay close to cover their retreats, more lives will be lost.” He never looked away from the holoscreen, but it felt like his eyes were heavy on every person in the command center as he continued, “Signal the evacuationnow. I want to see progress with our battery, give me a status update!”
More happened, the timbre of the alarms changing, more orders shouted, officers scuttling to obey, and yet for Darrel, everything felt like it was coming at him through gauzy layers of cloth. Even his breaths, tight and short as they were, seemed muffled, like he was inhaling into a pair of pillowcases, not lungs.
